Shoutout to the liverwort in my garden!

They're so adorable. They really don't deserve the name liverwort 🥲

This post is meant for readers who, by happenstance, stumble across this book in total ignorance of Pagebound Lore and are wondering how a niche erotic novella about a lobster has generated 100+ posts.

This forum rose to popularity in 2026, not by the powers of a readalong or quest, but by the charisma and careful wielding of gifs of one user, Sharky, who against all odds inspired a cult community discussion around this story.

The magnetic pull of Lobster in March 2026 cannot be overstated. References to Lobster were scattered throughout Pagebound in lists, comments, and club posts, creating mass FOMO and seducing users to visit this place and pick up this story despite the proliferation of... let's say, mixed reviews.

I, too, have finally succumbed to this crustacean after weeks of resistance. I've read the first few paragraphs, and all I can say is: I love you Pagebound.

If you've started reading this novel and are thinking WHY VIRGINIA WHY, this post is for you. I went down a rabbit hole of articles midway through reading and discovered a lot, which helped me enjoy the novel even more and inspired me to summarize some interesting tidbits here, which hopefully will answer the WHY?? question.

For sources, check out the links at the end of the post!

Some background: this novel was born at a time of social and political upheaval, when breakthroughs in science and technology transformed how Westerners saw reality. Scientists revealed that space and time were connected and flexible, and that humans shared the same matter as everything else. On an atomic level, teacups and people actually had a lot in common! 🤯

Put simply: humans were not special. They didn't organize the world. They were tiny, ephemeral pieces in the fabric of the universe. That's nothing new in the 21st century, but to the British a century ago, this was big news. 

Modernists like Woolf wanted to capture this reality in their work. In “A Sketch of the Past” (1939), she writes "that behind the cotton wool [of daily life] is hidden a pattern; that we—I mean all human beings—are connected with this; that the whole world is a work of art; that we are parts of the work of art."

She longed for a new type of writing that reflected the essence of life and "moments of being" that connected humans and non-humans as equals, and showed the inner life as vividly as the outer life. The Waves is her boldest attempt at this. She described the novel as “an abstract mystical eyeless book: a playpoem” where she aims "to saturate every atom" and "give the moment whole; whatever it includes. Say the moment is a combination of thought; sensation; the voice of the sea."

There's no focal point. No omniscient narrator that imposes artificial order on the world and makes a single person all-important. Instead the novel follows a rhythm - an underlying pattern - both within paragraphs and on a larger scale in the waves that ebb and flow.

Her work was inspired by art too, especially post-impressionistic painters like Paul Cézanne that were connected to her Bloomsbury group of friends, featured in a 1910 post-impressionist exhibition in London. The exhibition had "portraits, or landscapes, or still-lives, painted with a distinctive, idiosyncratic eye. They were anti-narrative, anti-naturalistic: form and style dominated."

Madame Cézanne dans un fauteuil rouge - Paul Cézanne:

Korenveld met kraaien - Vincent Van Gogh:

La fille aux yeux verts - Henri Matisse:

The same spirit is in this book, where form and style are more important than plot. Woolf is creating a new genre, a blend of poetry and prose, which demands a different mindset from readers - one where no creature dominates, but rather all blend together in a harmonious whole.

Note on sources: I was drawn to articles about vision, so the following sources all focus on that. Many books and articles have analyzed this novel, though, so if you're so inclined, do go down a rabbit hole yourself and share what you discover! 🕳️🐰

"Beyond Vision - Eyeless Writing in Virginia Woolf's The Waves" by Marie-Helen Rosalie Stahl

"Vision and Violence in Virginia Woolf's The Waves" by Peggy D. Otto

"Dualistic Vision in Virginia Woolf's The Waves" by Loran Gami